Posts Written OnDecember 2014

Jenn Flinn is a familiar face to many in the Campbell River arts scene despite her admitted lack of self-publicity and marketing efforts, the fact that she really doesn’t show her work that much, and sells it even less frequently. She also doesn’t really have a focus, either in subject matter or medium, so…. “I’m a dabbler,” Flinn says. “I’ve gone through obsessive phases of just about every medium. One year it was silkscreening, another it was airbrushing, and one year I traded my friend a bass guitar for a tattoo machine.” The tattooing didn’t stick, but most of the…

Thong Tran and Thanh Luu knew they had to protect their family from Communists. So they packed up their three daughters and fled to Canada. Betty Lee was just five-years-old when her parents relocated the family from her native Vietnam to Montreal. “When the Communists took over China, my mom’s family fled to Vietnam,” Lee says. “When the Communists moved into Vietnam my parents wanted none of that because they saw what the Communists had done (in China).” Vietnam was a French colony at the time and so her family made the decision to settle in Quebec. Their time there…

Jocelin Teron is no princess – she spends her days out in the woods and her crown is a hard hat – but she has been known to spend time with royalty. At 24, Teron, a Registered Professional Forester, is already making waves in the forestry industry. Just last year she won the Canadian Institute of Forestry’s first ever Prince of Wales Award for Sustainable Forestry. Teron travelled to Newfoundland to receive the award and then this spring she got to meet her award’s namesake, Prince Charles, while he was doing a tour of Prince Edward Island. “That was the…

In January of 1964, the Campbell River and District Winter Club opened its doors to the public. After selling 300 memberships for $100 each for seed money, the club was built for approximately $75,000, and it’s still one of the few “member owned and operated” facilities of its kind in the province. “The municipality isn’t set up to do this as part of the sports regimen in town, I guess,” says Larry Taylor, President of the club. “Curling started before any of the ice rinks or anything like that, and curling has always been a very social sport. It started…

Cantering around the barn, Zena, a beautiful, black Percheron-Fresian cross horse responds to a dip of the head, a gesture towards the ground, a subtle movement. The dips, gestures and movements belong to Zena’s owner Corinne Matheson and the movements at times look choreographed. In fact, the horse and owner respond so quickly and subtly to each other, they almost look like they’re dancing together. It’s a reflection of the horse and owner’s relationship and it’s a reflection of the training techniques Matheson uses. Matheson is a horse whisperer. That term conjures up a number of images. You think of…

Couple is brightening up the holidays with their holiday murals Christmas is his busiest time of year. No, he’s not Santa Claus, but the job is roughly the same – to spread Christmas cheer and goodwill around the community. With a car full of acrylic paint, giant markers and stencils, George Roach, a realtor for Century 21, and his wife Erin Roach, have been brightening up the holidays for local businesses for the past two years. For a short span between the end of November and early December, the couple hit up as many businesses as they can to decorate…